Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Senator Whitehouse supports single-payer health care

Rhode Island will have
a signature on Senator Bernie Sanders’ much-anticipated Medicare For All bill
set to be introduced on Wednesday as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse will be a
cosponsor.

“It’s time we had a
real conversation about creating a national health plan,” Whitehouse said in a
statement released today.

“We have come a long
way under Obamacare, but I still hear from Rhode Island families and small
business owners that health care costs are too high. I am committed to
bringing down those costs while improving the quality of care for Rhode
Islanders.”

Medicare For All is a
euphemism for a single-payer healthcare system, or one in which the government
provides basic healthcare to everyone.

It’s akin to making basic healthcare a
right of citizenship, much like public education.

Democrats, who by and
large wouldn’t consider the idea when crafting Obamacare, have becoming
increasingly receptive to the idea after the 2016 presidential election made
clear populist uprisings are brewing if not boiling in both major parties.

“As Sanders prepares
to unveil his new legislation next week,” CNN reported on Saturday, “the broader left is
beginning to coalesce around a vision that holds up universal,
government-backed health care as a core Democratic party principle. California’s
Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rhode Island’s Sheldon
Whitehouse” are expected cosponsors, CNN reported, with more expected. Since
then, Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, has also signed onto the bill.

RI Sen Jack Reed’s
office has not yet responded to a request for comment on the bill. In March, he
was quoted by the Washington Post at a town hall
meeting in Coventry as saying, “I’m old enough to have voted for a single-payer
system in the House.”